Campaign pressure evident in literature

YOU seldom see a politician brag, even implicitly, that he alone impeded access to treatment for children with addiction issues or hindered homeless kids’ ability to get services, but never underestimate the pressures of a campaign.

In a recent mailer, Oklahoma House Speaker Charles McCall, R-Atoka, boasts that he “refused” to “allow voucher legislation” to even receive a legislative debate, characterizing school choice bills as legislation that “would rob rural schools of dollars to be spent in urban private schools.” In case that message is too subtle, the mailer includes a picture of a grasping hand (labeled “big city insiders”) reaching for “our rural schools.”

Yet the content of the major school choice proposal unsuccessfully submitted this year (a Senate bill), rebuts such demonization. The most significant change sought in 2018 was to provide state funds to children with mental health or substance abuse disorders so they can attend private schools that provide treatment services along with a traditional education. The bill also would have provided funds to homeless students to enroll in a private school designed to help them, such as Positive Tomorrows in Oklahoma City.

Killing such bills can mean youth with drug problems remain in traditional classrooms, untreated, with all the associated problems that creates for teachers and other students. How is that good?

Also, it must be noted private schools exist outside metro areas. No doubt the folks in Corn, roughly population 500, will be surprised to learn McCall thinks they are “big city insiders” because Corn Bible Academy might serve more students under school choice measures.

Instead, out-of-state, “big city” influence appears mostly in McCall’s campaign rhetoric, which also is in direct opposition to his voting record.

In 2017, McCall not only “allowed” a debate on a school choice bill but voted for its passage. Senate Bill 301 expanded the Lindsey Nicole Henry Scholarships for Students with Disabilities Program to provide voucher scholarships to foster and adopted children. That program has been highly successful, helping many children with autism and similar challenges who struggle in a traditional school setting. Now it helps foster children, too. This is a good thing.

By the way, SB 301 was co-authored by McCall’s right-hand man, House Majority Floor Leader Jon Echols, R-Oklahoma City.

McCall’s actions show he knows that one size does not fit all children, and that school choice can provide enormous benefit. So why does he now pretend otherwise? Like other Republican leaders, he is under fire for mismanagement of state finances. We have sympathized with his plight as House leader, due in part to his typical calm, measured responses, which are the polar opposite of his campaign’s shrill stridency.

Oklahoma needs political leaders who will work to make this state a better place to live, work, invest and raise a family. Those goals are undermined any time a political leader rhetorically turns his back on homeless children, students with addiction problems and those with mental illness.